The Martian: Nasa's announcement of water on Mars comes just ahead of movie premiere

Matt Damon plays the character of astronaut Mark Watney who goes on an exploration journey to the Red Planet20th Century Fox

Nasa's revelation that there is evidence of running water on Mars has triggered curiosity across the world. The news, coincidentally, comes very close to the premiere of Ridley Scott's movie, The Martian. Following Nasa's announcement that the soil of the Red Planet harbours liquid water, the social media team for 20th Century Fox quickly responded by using the news to promote their movie.

Some even suspected that Nasa and Scott planned the announcement close to the premiere of The Martian so as to boost anticipation for the movie. But the US space agency has scotched the movie promotion rumours. "No, the timing was dictated by the publication of the Nature Geoscience article, which was released today," Nasa spokeswoman Laurie Cantillo explained to Yahoo News. Meanwhile, Scott the director of the sci-fi picture, has told Yahoo Movies that he "knew that months ago".

"When I first talked to NASA, we got into all kinds of stuff and I said, 'So I know you've got down there [these] massive glaciers.' And he said, 'Yeah, that the massive white thing [on the surface of Mars] that gets covered with dust, we think that's ice,'" Scott recalled one of his discussions with the scientists. "And I said, 'Wow! Does that mean there was an ocean?' Are we right now what Mars was 750 million years ago?' And they went, 'Uh, good question.' So they want to go up there and find out.'"

In the movie, Matt Damon plays the character of astronaut Mark Watney, who is stranded on the Red Planet after his crew leave him there assuming he succumbed to a deadly storm. With only meagre supplies left for him, he must try to grow his own food to survive and connect to Earth so that he can be rescued.

The 78-year-old director claims that scientists at the US space agency found his movie accurate. "They loved the adaptation of the screenplay. They thought it was fun and mostly accurate. When I showed them the film, 40 guys saw it in Washington from NASA, and one muttered, 'Maybe this will help us with reprogramming and the refinancing [of the U.S. space program].' I mean, he was partly joking, but that was very nice." The Martian will premiere on 2 October in the US.